A WOMAN charged with plotting to bomb a public place faces a Sydney court today.
The 26-year-old was arrested yesterday following a joint NSW and Australian Federal Police (AFP) investigation.
A number of homes in Casula and Hoxton Park, in Sydney's south-west, were also searched in connection with the plot, the AFP said.
The woman has been charged with conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to cause explosives to be placed in or near a public place.
Very terse report, which means the cops are keeping a lid on it. More arrests soon?
#2
Note, pointedly there's no name given.
I agree, they're keeping a lid on, probably until the can round up accomplices.
Does make me wonder a bit, since Islamics have used unknowing and unwitting "Suicide" bombers before whether the woman knew or didn't know there was a bomb in her car.
We shall see.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
03/24/2006 19:20 Comments ||
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#3
Australian cops are a lot more miserly with information than in the US. If they ever say you are "assisting police with their inquiries", God help you.
#4
CONCERNS have between raised in a Sydney court about the mental health of a 26-year-old woman charged with conspiracy to murder over an alleged public bomb plot.
Jill Courtney, of Casula, was arrested yesterday following raids on a number of south-west Sydney homes by NSW and the Australian Federal Police.
She has been charged with conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to cause explosives to be placed in or near a public place between July 1 2005 and 24 March this year.
Courtney did not appear in a brief hearing at Parramatta Bail Court today, but her lawyer Adam Houda asked the matter be adjourned until Monday.
Mr Houda also asked that his client be assessed by a psychiatrist before that time.
"There is a little concern about her mental health," Mr Houda told Registrar Rosemary Davidson.
Bail was not applied for and was formally refused by Ms Davidson, who adjourned the matter to Sydney's Central Local Court on Monday, March 27
If she is a lone crazy, why the conspiracy charges?
Afghan army units destroyed a suspected command cell of the Taliban militia in an operation in the central province of Uruzgan, carried out with the support of coalition forces, the U.S. military command said.
Six fighters were killed in the incident yesterday in an area where Taliban operatives have bases, the Combined Forces Command - Afghanistan said on its Web site. Afghan soldiers recovered materials ``intended for the manufacture of improvised explosive devices,'' the command said.
Sebghatullah Mojadeddi, the leader of the Afghan upper house of parliament known as the Meshrano Jirga, escaped an attempt by suicide bombers on March 12 to kill him in the capital, Kabul. He later accused Pakistan of being behind the incident, a charge Pakistan's government on March 13 described as ``absurd and highly irresponsible,'' AFP reported at the time.
Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taliban's fugitive leader, in a purported statement issued March 16 said fighters will intensify suicide attacks to make the country like a ``flaming oven,'' AFP reported at the time. Young people have ``filled lists'' volunteering for such attacks, he said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/24/2006 02:54 ||
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#1
Well done, Afghan army! As for the Taliban, they are certainly working hard to reduce their excess population problem, so at least they can be considered effective by that -- unintentional -- metric. ;-)
A district police chief was killed by his own bodyguard in Afghanistan's troubled southern parts on Thursday. Other bodyguards of the slain instantly opened fire at their colleague killing him on the spot. Chief of the Moosa Qala district of Afghanistan's southern Helmand province was shot dead in the morning by his bodyguards. However the attacker was killed by his colleagues burying the chance to know what was the cause behind the killing of the chief. A senior district official Wali Alizai said the real cause behind the killing of Abdul Mannan could not be immediately ascertained because the bodyguards had killed the attacker.
Meanwhile, coalition forces claimed killing six Taliban during a joint operation with Afghan soldiers in the neighbouring Uruzgan province. A statement released here on Thursday said the operation was carried out on Tuesday in the area believed to be a hideout of the insurgents from where they manage to attack the Afghan and coalition forces. A day earlier, Afghan forces claimed they had killed 15 Taliban in an overnight clash in the border areas of the Kandahar province. However, locals later revealed the slain were ordinary citizens and not Taliban. On the other hand, the incident further intensified the tension between Pakistan and Afghanistan as the former said the people killed by Afghan forces were citizens of Pakistan. Tribes living along the rugged border between the two countries claim citizenship of both the countries and they frequently cross the border to meet their relatives and friends living on the other side, or look after their businesses.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/24/2006 00:00 ||
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Hundreds of people have been fleeing the northern suburbs of Mogadishu after two days of heavy fighting in the Somali capital.
Mogadishu has suburbs?
Doctors say at least 60 people have been killed and that the hospitals are full of injured civilians.
Residents say mortars are being used in the battle between an Islamic militia and warlords. The warlords have accused the Islamists of sheltering foreign fighters and assassinating moderate Muslims.
The United Nations' Irin news agency quotes a doctor saying many more than 60 people may have been killed "because a lot of people are being buried where they died". The BBC's Mohammed Olad Hassan says hundreds of residents have been forced to leave after their homes were hit by anti-tank shells and mortar rounds. He says more than 100 armed vehicles have been deployed and more than 100 militiamen are fighting. "Really the situation is very horrific there, many people could be seen fleeing from the area with their children on their backs and what you can see on the ground is only militiamen carrying guns from the line of fighting," he said.
In February, the clan-based warlords formed an alliance to challenge the Islamic militia which is loyal to a system of Sharia courts. The Islamic militia says it is trying to establish law and order but the warlords accuse the courts of terrorising the people of Somalia. The dispute started near the port area, which is currently controlled by powerful businessmen. Much of the fighting has been in residential areas and the latest clashes are reportedly closer to the city centre.
Four days of fighting last month between the two sides was some of the heaviest seen in the Somali capital for several years. There are fears that with such a strong ideological divide between the two sides, it may prove difficult to negotiate an end to the fighting. Somalia has been without an effective central government for recorded history 15 years and has been carved up by rival militias.
A transitional parliament met recently for the first time on home soil since it was formed in Kenya more than a year ago as part of attempts to restore peace and stability. At least five warlords-cum-ministers in the transitional government are behind the new Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism, opposed to the Islamic courts' militia. The courts have set up Mogadishu's only judicial system in parts of the capital but have been accused of links to al-Qaeda.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/24/2006 02:55 ||
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#1
Da ta da ta da da da
listening to Gershon Kingsley popcorn
THE Foreign and Commonwealth Office has been forced into an embarrassing change of heart over its refusal to press for the release of a British resident held at Guantanamo Bay after the High Court was told yesterday that he had links to MI5.
Bisher al-Rawi, 37, who has lived in Britain for more than 20 years, says that he was working for British Intelligence when he was picked up by the CIA during a trip to Africa. Lawyers for Mr al-Rawi and two other long-term British residents held at Guantanamo claim that they are all being tortured and want the High Court to order Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, to lobby the US authorities for their release.
The Government has said that as foreign nationals the men have no legal right to the assistance they are demanding. But the Foreign Office said yesterday that Mr al-Rawis case was now regarded as different. "The Foreign Secretary considered it appropriate to reconsider Mr al-Rawis request that he make representations to the US," it said.
Mr al-Rawi, an Iraqi national, and his Jordanian business partner, Jamil el-Banna, who was granted refugee status in 2000, were picked up in Gambia three years ago and accused of trying to set up an al-Qaeda terrorist training camp. Both men claim that they were asked by British Intelligence to infiltrate an organisation run by a London-based radical cleric, Abu Qatada.
Timothy Otty, who is appearing for the detainees, said that documents from a security service agent, "Witness A", established that there were "communications" relating to the two men before their arrest in November 2002, between the British and US security services.
The third man, Libyan-born Omar Deghayes, 36, had also been held at Guantanamo for three years and was now on a hunger strike, Mr Otty said.The hearing is expected to last for two more days.
#3
I would think this would be very easy to check, and also a very good way to ensure a bad apple is mistreated by Al Queda friends if/when he is released.
#5
Kinda makes me wonder why he didn't speak up earlier.
Bet he's a fake.
OOoooh, not good to try to fool the cops.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
03/24/2006 19:25 Comments ||
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#6
Mr al-Rawi, an Iraqi national, and his Jordanian business partner, Jamil el-Banna, who was granted refugee status in 2000, were picked up in Gambia three years ago and accused of trying to set up an al-Qaeda terrorist training camp. Both men claim that they were asked by British Intelligence to infiltrate an organisation run by a London-based radical cleric, Abu Qatada.
Three years, and not a peep about this until NOW? No mention of his handler's name?
Why exactly DO these guys make these wild-ass claims? Do they really believe we are that dumb? Do they believe the lefty propaganda that Americans are that dumb? Perhaps they think that Allah will intervene and make the kuffir believe the unbelievable? Is some Gitmo interrogator going stark raving mad from boredom deciding to liven things up by passing patently obvious bullshit to our British cousins?
A British terrorist cell with alleged links to Al-Qaeda discussed bombing revellers at a large central London nightclub as well as targeting several synagogues in London and one in Manchester, a prosecutor said Wednesday. One of the defendants, Salahuddin Amin, even discussed trying to buy a radio-isotope "dirty bomb" from the Russian mafia, but nothing appeared to have come from his enquiries, prosecutor David Waters told a London jury.
On the second day of the trial at the Central Criminal Court, Waters also said Amin, 31, and co-accused Omar Khyam, 24, received instruction in Pakistan about how to make the poison ricin while there for explosives training. The group, which allegedly had help in its preparations in Pakistan and Canada, discussed potential targets at the home of Jawad Akbar, 22, on February 22, 2004, he said.
But the talks were overheard by the British security services and anti-terrorism police, who had bugged the house, he added. "Jawad Akbar referred to attacks upon the utilities, gas, water or electrical supplies. Alternatively, a big nightclub in central London might be a target," Waters said. The plot involved detonating a bomb made with ammonium nitrate and aluminium powder and using encrypted radio transmissions, he added.
Waters also suggested that several synagogues in London and one in Manchester, northwest England, that appeared on a list found at the house of two of the defendants, could also have been potential targets. Group members are alleged to have trained in explosives at a camp in Pakistan and obtained 600 kilogrammes (1,322 pounds) of ammonium nitrate fertiliser for use in Britain.
Arrests were made on March 30, 2004, when plans were moving towards a "final phase", although Amin was picked up on February 8 last year after arriving from Islamabad, Waters said. Before that, Khyam, who was allegedly "at the centre of operations", was said to have discussed, both by e-mail and in person, making remote detonators with Canadian Mohammed Momin Khawaja.
Khawaja is awaiting trial there in connection with the alleged plot after being arrested in Toronto a week after his return from meeting Khyam and Shuja Mahmood, 19, his brother and co-defendant.
The others -- one of whom worked for a contractor to British utility National Grid Transco -- were heard discussing bombs, praising the Madrid train bombings and raising the possibility of carrying out a "little explosion" at a British shopping centre. One, 23-year-old Anthony Garcia, also known as Rahman Adam, wrote a farewell letter to his younger brother that was found at his girlfriends house, the court heard.
Waters said Amin had made enquiries about acquiring a radio-isotope bomb after going to Pakistan, although his search was apparently fruitless. Amin himself later told police he did not believe the offer of atomic material for a "dirty bomb" -- where radioactive material is spread over a large area by a conventional explosive -- was genuine. But the lawyer stressed that whether the possibility of acquiring and using a "dirty bomb" was realistic or not, Amin had made a "fundamental and a concrete and immensely important contribution" to the conspiracy.
Waters said Tuesday that Waheed Mahmood, 34, was a supporter of Al-Qaeda, and that he, Khyam and his brother worked for a man called Abdul Hadi, whom Khyam reportedly described as Al-Qaedas number three.
All six men as well as Nabeel Hussain, 20, deny conspiracy to cause explosions with Khawaja and unknown others plus separate counts of possessing articles for terrorism.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/24/2006 02:50 ||
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AN AMERICAN terrorist-turned-supergrass who conspired with Islamist extremists to blow up British targets was a follower of Abu Hamza alMasri, the jailed cleric, the Old Bailey was told yesterday.
Muhammad Babar, who has admitted having links to al-Qaeda, was taken to court by armed police amid maximum security to give evidence against his former accomplices.
He allegedly left America days after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, to fight in Pakistan, even though his mother, who worked in the World Trade Centre, had narrowly escaped death when the aircraft hit.
Babar, 31, told the court that he met Omar Bakri Muhammad, the exiled leader of alMuhajiroun, a radical Islamist group, during a visit to Britain. He was later in contact with Abu Hamza and spent time in Pakistan preparing for jihad (holy war) with 15 to 20 brothers, mostly from Britain.
The prosecution claims that these men included six of the seven defendants standing trial for conspiring to cause an explosion in Britain. Targets that they discussed included Bluewater shopping centre in Kent, a Central London nightclub, a train or power supplies.
Babar has pleaded guilty in New York to terrorist-related offences, including what the American authorities described as the British bomb plot. He is the first supergrass linked to al-Qaeda to give evidence in a Western court and has been given immunity from prosecution in relation to his evidence.
Armed anti-terrorism police wearing flak jackets stood guard outside the court, which was cleared of media and members of the public while the former pharmacy student was brought in by US marshals.
He was taken to the Old Bailey amid tight security in a convoy of vehicles with a helicopter overhead. Roads were sealed off as, escorted by police cars, the unmarked prison van crossed Central London. It arrived at the back of the Old Bailey and Babar was taken through a rear entrance while a cordon of armed officers excluded any other vehicles.
One of the charges that Babar admitted was conspiring to promote material support. This relates to the acquisition of ammonium nitrate fertiliser and aluminium powder, which the prosecution alleges were components for explosives to be used in attacks in Britain. Babar said that he became a member of Hizb-ut-Tahrir and al-Muhajiroun while at university, when he became angered by the Gulf War.
Speaking in an American accent, without looking at the defendants in the dock, he said that he became radicalised during the Gulf War.
He joined various Islamic groups at university in New York, concentrating on those that shared his belief that Muslims should unite and fight back as a unit.
Babar cited his influences as Abu Hamza and Bakri Muhammad. He followed Abu Hamzas website proclamations on Sharia and met Bakri Muhammad in person, later communicating with him by e-mail and telephone. The British brothers, with him in Pakistan for jihad, were mostly from London and Crawley, West Sussex, he said. The names he listed were, the prosecution says, those used by the defendants while in Pakistan.
Asked what he meant by brothers, Babar said: Most of the time it just means your Muslim brothers, but it could mean Arabs or members of al-Qaeda.
Babar was born in Pakistan but moved to America as a child, occasionally visiting his home country. He moved back to Pakistan between 2001 and 2004, setting up an al- Muhajiroun office in Peshawar.
He said that, for a while, he had wanted to fight in Palestine or Chechnya, but the opportunity never presented itself. When the September 11 attacks happened, which his mother survived, he realised that the US would invade Afghanistan and decided it was the best time to go and fight.
It took him a week to get a visa and he flew to Pakistan, via a visit to Britain, arranged by an al-Muhajiroun contact living in Britain.
After praying at a mosque in Southall, West London, and attending a demonstration at the Pakistan High Commission, Babar went to the London al-Muhajiroun office and met Bakri Muhammad. While in Britain he told his al-Muhajiroun contact that he wanted to travel to Pakistan but had no savings. He was given £300 with the promise of more money when he reached there.
The jury was told earlier in the trial that Babars contact with the defendants related mainly to developing expertise in explosives and acquiring bomb parts. This training was initially directed towards fighting in Afghanistan and only later focused on British targets.
Salahuddin Amin, 31, of Luton; Shujah Mahmood, 18, Waheed Mahmood, 34, Omar Khyam, 24, and Jawad Akbar, 22, all from Crawley, West Sussex; Anthony Garcia, 24, of Ilford, East London; and Nabeel Hussain, 20, from Horley, Surrey, all deny conspiring to cause an explosion likely to endanger life between October 2003 and March 2004.
Mr Khyam, Mr Garcia and Mr Hussain also deny possessing 600kg (1,300lb) of fertiliser for the purposes of terrorism. Mr Khyam and Shujah Mahmood deny possessing aluminium powder, also for the purposes of terrorism.
The trial continues.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/24/2006 02:39 ||
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#1
He joined various Islamic groups at university in New York, concentrating on those that shared his belief that Muslims should unite and fight back as a unit.
After this trial is over, he'd better go on to grassing on his university brothers, too.
Italy is on a state of high alert for possible terrorist attacks during the final phase of the elections campaign. Voting is scheduled to take place on April 9 and 10, and it is feared that Islamic militants may strike immediately before voting to maximize its political impact. To compound the sense of anxiety, the Bush administration has just warned that Italy should expect terrorist attacks (similar to the ones that devastated Madrid two years ago) near the elections.
This follows a warning by the Italian vice president of the European Commission, Franco Frattini, calling on the EU to "increase anti-terrorism intelligence operations," as "the recent al-Qaeda threats [referring to the March 5 Ayman al-Zawahiri video] are to be taken very seriously." Frattini further warned that "al-Qaeda is ready to strike and Italy is at risk because of its solid alliance with the U.S." aka; The Great Satan
Referring to the imminent terrorist threat, Italian Defense Minister Antonio Martino told the press on March 20 that "there is a risk of terrorist attacks as the election day approaches." Martino claimed that "what happened in Spain in 2004 suggests the risk exists." He then added that "if such an attack took place, no Italian citizen would ever ask for our troops to be immediately withdrawn from Iraq". This is a thinly veiled reference to Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's decision to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq following the March 2004 terrorist attacks in Madrid. Rock Solid Antonio!
The same day, daily newspapers reported that Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi had issued a new warning to Italy: "Fresh riots like those which rocked Benghazi are to be expected." Qadhafi added that "terrorist attacks could be launched on Italian soil because Rome has not yet admitted its responsibility as a former colonial power and Libyans are furious over the cartoons issue". While Libyan state-sponsored terrorism is no longer a credible threat, Qadhafi's statement highlights the very real threat posed by Libyan Islamic militants both to targets within Italy and Italian interests abroad. Is Mo still pissed about the Punic Wars in the third century BC?
Cartoons and Terrorism
The row over the cartoons ridiculing Prophet Muhammad reached a climax in late February with the assault on the Italian Consulate in Benghazi, which claimed at least nine lives. The Libyan protesters targeted the Italian Consulate for two reasons: first, Italian politicians (in particular Roberto Calderoli of the separatist Northern League) had been making inflammatory remarks in support of the Danish cartoons; second, as a former colonial power, Italy is held in suspicion by Libyan nationalists and Islamists alike.
The inflammatory remarks of Italian politicians You know, All that freedom of speech stuff. followed by Qadhafi's "warning" to Italy, which culminated in the bloody incident in Benghazi, sparked a diplomatic crisis between the two countries, diminishing bilateral relations to its lowest level in years. While this does not entail a direct terrorist threat, it does worsen Italy's already negative image to Islamic militants.
Moreover, in a videotape shown by al-Jazeera on March 5, Ayman al-Zawahiri made an explicit threat against Italy, while directly addressing the inflammatory remarks of Roberto Calderoli of the Northern League. "We renew our warning to Rome and Berlusconi: If Italy won't withdraw its troops from Iraq, it will dig its own grave there," al-Zawahiri threatened. Additionally, al-Zawahiri referred to the Madrid and London attacks as the template for any terrorist assault on Italy.
Furthermore, Noman Benotman, a former Libyan jihadist with extensive experience in Afghanistan and Sudan, gave an interview to Corriere della Sera on February 23, claiming that the "rage against Italy" is rising. "If Italy won't officially apologize and concretely help Libyan people socially and economically, it will be at risk of terrorist attacks, even in the long-term," Benotman warned. You can take the boy out of the Jihad but you cant take the Jihad out of the boy.
#1
Italy is not at risk because of it's alliance with us, they are at risk because they are not a bunch of sub-human animals that want to establish sharia law across the world. What would an attack accomplish? It would only provoke the populus into a more anti- islamic mode. Muslims in europe are already on the outs with most europeans, I don't understand what an attack at this stage would hope to accomplish.
#2
In other words, "Behave like proper dhimmis by debasing yourselves and paying the jizya tax, or you will pay the price." So much for the good Colonel having seen the light when he turned over his nuclear toys.
Germany's intelligence chief said on Thursday that the success of Germany and other countries in hunting down terrorists has done little to reduce the threat "Islamic terrorism" poses to Europe and Israel.
In a rare public appearance, Ernst Uhrlau, head of Germany's BND foreign intelligence agency, said Europe had been transformed from an Islamist recruitment and financing centre into a target of Islamist extremism.
"In spite of numerous successful hunts for terrorists, the terrorist threat situation has eased only superficially. The bomb attacks in Madrid and London are clear evidence that Europe is no longer just a recruitment and financing area but has become a target of Islamic terrorism," Uhrlau told a conference on Islamic extremism organized by the American Jewish Congress.
"In the foreseeable future international terrorism will remain one of the most serious threats to our society. More than ever before Israel and Europe as a single risk area are caught in the crosshairs of international terrorism," he said.
Unlike the foreign-born members of al Qaeda seen responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, "the terrorists in Europe are homegrown and homemade," he added.
A Hamburg-based al-Qaeda cell has been blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks. Since then, Germany has cracked down on Muslim militants living in the country and has had a number of high-profile trials of radical Islamists.
Uhrlau also said that both Israel and Europe now faced less of a threat from non-religious militant organizations than from trans-national militant Islamist organizations.
"Terrorist groupings of a secular character and with only a regional sphere of activity have largely been pushed into the background," Uhrlau said. "Only a few of the secular groupings still pose a serious threat."
He did not name any of the groups. The Irish Republican Army (IRA) has essentially disarmed and the Basque separatist group ETA declared a ceasefire earlier this week.
Uhrlau said the recent crisis sparked by a Danish newspaper's decision to publish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad showed there may be irreconcilable differences between Islamic and western cultures.
"The recent controversy over Muhammad cartoons has raised the question of compatibility in principle between basic elements of Western and Muslim standards of culture. In this case, freedom of the press versus religious values.
"The fact is that such antagonism may emerge time and again in sensitive areas of identity on either side," he said.
#2
cats out of the bag. I have nothing against Muslims. People are people and I think that Mulsims will be the ones who help us to win this war OF terror. But I do think there is the issue of whether or not we should allow immigrants who come here and refuse to acknowledge or obey our laws and intend to end ideals of religious freedom, tolerance for all individuals and who intend to use demographics and democracy to end the western belief of the separation of church and state.
#3
Even Blind Man Europe finally gets a BGO (Blinding Glimpse of the Obvious). Once again, good and great thanks to Denmark for publishing the cartoons. They were a much needed clarion call.
#4
Zen, I hope you are right, but I fear no. Given the history most of the continent would love to keep head in sand. I don't know, but I don't really think Europe has caught on. I fear in a year or so, cartoons will be forgotten and the big bad US will still be the hegmonic source of all problems. They can't shake it, it is how they are.
#5
I understand how you feel, bombay. I really do not want to be so cynical about it, however tempting it is. The cartoons have served a truly noble purpose and I'm hoping that Europe will keep its eyes open this time and not nod back off into complacency as it usually does.
I have a unique perspective on it being technically 1/2 American and 1/2 European, with much family there still ...
I say technically, as I will admit freely that I was born US, live in US, feel US and claim first and foremost that I am US - ALWAYS. My Euro counterparts hate me for it. Oh well, lol.
However, I have also lived in Europe and shortly in Asia, and with contacts I still maintain (having until recently worked for a European company) and have the family there, that they just don't get it.
I really, really, really want to avoid the thoughts I have, but, I just can't ... it is as if I know them too well or something.
The cartoon issue was 'well, america does have a point' but the average Euro still say 'but still, they are that hegmonic evil, so even though what they are saying looks true from example, it is still the yanks and it doesn't matter, peace in our time!'
As in, better fun to hate on us and not deal with the mess than it is to really look at the problem and deal with ... wow, a common problem I have found at EVERY European entity (i.e. company / government) I have had the pleasure of working with.
#7
Thank you for the insights. I, too, am half European (my mother was born in Copenhagen, Denmark). The Danes tend to have much more sympathetic feelings for the Americans due to our role in WWII, than many other Europeans, so that odd amalgam of resentful ingratitude just didn't show up in family relations.
Woe on Europe and Muslim alike should the continent drowse off once again into its usual inattentive slumber. The "last resort" school of conflict resolution so popular in Europe more often resembles a charnel house than anything else.
#9
Zen, awesome, then you probably feel what I do ... this almost dread of knowing what is coming and trying to tell them, but they just don't care or think that we (US) are just so childish as not to listen. It is just amazing.
I hope beyone hope that your are correct in this, that they have woken up ... I just have this nagging voice / feeling from knowing them so well that it can't be true ... please I am wrong!
#10
to deny there's a special relationship is ridiculous. Rocky, sometimes, but the US will not let Israel be devoured by autocratic enemies of Jews, western values, and democracy in general. W said so just the other day...people really oughtta learn that he believes exactly what he says.
Lucky it's not up to King Frank: I'm up for a selected assassination program just for the desecration of the Church of the Nativity by Paleo scumbags. Then, the princelings....
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/24/2006 19:15 Comments ||
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#11
Jutland it where the Angles, Saxons and Jutes came from. I think this may have something to do with their affinity for America and the way we do things.
#15
My grandparents were all Europians. I think they have a kind of group penis envy. We have the 'land of plenty' and they have a serious bug up their ass over it. It's like when your best friend borrows money from you, and then he stops coming around. Weeks become months, and he is nowhere in site. Like, I owe you, so you are making me feel beneath you, subservient, unworthy.
Then there's always the possibility that they don't feel patriotic, because they consider their countries weak and insignificant.
Whatever, get over it.
A huge explosion has ripped through a chemistry institute in Mulhouse, eastern France, seriously injuring at least one woman, firefighters say. A fire was raging after the blast at 1225 (1125 GMT) and thick smoke billowed over the scene, the French news agency AFP reported. It is not yet clear how the explosion happened.
Could be a gas leak. Could have been a homework assignment gone bad. We'll have to wait and see.
The institute is part of a 25-hectare campus near the city centre and 8,000 students are enrolled there. The surrounding area was evacuated and teachers were doing a head count of students, French radio reported. The explosion is reported to have been heard two kilometres away and it broke the windows of nearby buildings.
Additional: MULHOUSE, France, March 24 (Reuters) - A huge explosion destroyed a research building at a French university in the eastern city of Mulhouse on Friday, injuring a large number of people, the emergency services said. Rescue workers faced thick smoke when they arrived at the institute of chemistry on the university campus, a Reuters witness said. The reason for the blast, which was heard across much of the city, was not immediately known. "There are a large number of victims," one rescuer told Reuters.
French television said at least one person was seriously hurt and witness Cedric Ridepi told the LCI TV station that he had seen "the inside (of the building) devastated. There were several seats of fire. "There were screams from inside. I saw one wounded person," he added. A student in a nearby building, who gave her name only as Aude, said there "was a huge explosion and all the windows were shattered".
The UNEF student union said the complex was not occupied by students as part of protests against a youth jobs law that have hit universities around France.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/24/2006 08:13 ||
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#2
The UNEF student union said the complex was not occupied by students as part of protests against a youth jobs law that have hit universities around France
I know we need to wait.... but... my, my, isn't that a coincidence?
#4
DarthVader - That is true, but even if the French police come back and say it's a gas leak should we believe them? The claimed the rioting last year was no big deal, and there was that explosion/fire in a factory (?) in Marseille soon after 9/11 that had the earmarks of a bomb, but it got called an accidental fire.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats ||
03/24/2006 9:33 Comments ||
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#5
Occam's razor. Modern chemistry buildings are constructed with "blow away" features, like vents under the eaves and things like that, on the assumption that sooner or later there will be an oops.
Having worked with "things that make you go 'boom'", I can say that there are a LOT of materials out there can that give you really sweet contained explosions. On top of that you have the benzene ring fairies and gas gremlins conspiring against you.
#7
This is less than 80 miles from a Chemistry department I know where twice in last twenty years the staff have deliberately burned it to the ground in order to get a better building. No-one could prove it was anything other than an accident and they are happy now in new state-of-the-art laboratories.
#8
I assume the French also add odorants to piped-in gas, so if it were a gas leak, wouldn't it have been noticeable? PARTICULARLY by a building filled with chemistry students and teachers? I'd guess they'd be as jumpy about gas as my EE profs were about high voltage.
Not saying it wasn't, it just seems odd.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/24/2006 9:53 Comments ||
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#9
what Laurence of the Rats said, but even if the French police come back and say it's a gas leak should we believe them?
the Frogs have a long cooking thingy.
/bon appetite
#13
Research chemist Derek Long, on his In the Pipeline blog, has been wondering about the cause too; he doesn't know either. However, if you look at his "How Not to Do It" series, you'll see all sorts of bad mistakes one can make in a chemistry lab. The March 8, 2006 entry about an exploding liquid nitrogen tank at Texas A&M was quite striking.
And then there are the situations you can get into with improperly stored ethers. Ether and oxygen gives organic peroxides, which blow up real good. Acetone peroxide is favored by terrorists, yes, but most any organic peroxide can wipe out a building. He has one particularly harrowing case.
When I was a student at Brooklyn College in the 1970s, they had to evacuate Ingersoll Hall because somene found an old half-empty container of an ether that had not been correctly sealed.
Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
03/24/2006 22:52 Comments ||
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Gang Rampage Mars Rally Against Job Law; Pressure Builds on Chirac
It was just the scene the French government had been dreading: burning cars seven blocks from the Eiffel Tower, shop windows smashed along one of the capital's toniest streets, and columns of helmeted riot police advancing across the greensward of a prominent tourist venue.
Antoil Ethuin, 48, stood outside the shattered windows of his Bike n' Roll rental shop Thursday, stunned by the destruction of the worst violence in two weeks of student protests in Paris and other French cities.
"My country is broken," said Ethuin, gazing at the smoldering automobile carcasses a few yards away and the carpet of glass shards, broken dishes and computer pieces covering the sidewalk in the heart of one of the city's most affluent neighborhoods. "I never imagined I would ever see this in Paris."
Thursday's violence came at the end of a demonstration by tens of thousands of high school and college students protesting a new job law. The unrest intensified a political crisis that now threatens to unravel President Jacques Chirac's government -- much the way previous French governments have been felled by strikes and street protests when they attempted even modest reforms of the country's costly welfare state.
The demonstrations have underscored the widening divide between the French government and its people at a time when France is losing both economic and political clout on the global stage. Street protests and general strikes, often occurring in the spring, have long been an accepted political ritual in France, and they now have become a symbol of the country's inability to reform a stagnant economy hobbled by inflexible labor laws, high taxes and a corpulent welfare system.
It is a crisis also facing other countries across Europe as governments of the left and the right have similarly attempted to alter their costly systems of generous health, unemployment and welfare benefits; most, like that of former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, have failed in the face of widespread resistance to change.
On Thursday afternoon, as a crowd of as many as 140,000 young people and others prepared to end their march in the large park fronting the gold-domed Hotel des Invalides housing Napoleon's tomb, gangs of hooded and masked youths darted out of side streets, setting cars ablaze, flipping others upside down, breaking store windows and throwing rocks and stones at police and firefighters, according to witnesses.
Riot police broke up the groups of rampaging youths with tear gas as acrid, black smoke filled narrow streets and billowed above the city skyline.
Police said 60 people were injured in the clashes, including 27 police officers, and 141 people were arrested.
The shellshocked owner of the Shanghai Restaurant overlooking the Esplanade des Invalides stood outside the jagged glass of his doorway, dejected and slump-shouldered. Broken dishes and pots of white and purple flowers littered the street. Inside, splintered chairs and table settings covered the restaurant floor.
Nearly a dozen stores, restaurants and apartment buildings were attacked and damaged. Firefighters struggled to extinguish the flames of three burned-out cars. Four other vehicles had been overturned or severely battered.
In the park across the street, hundreds of riot police clad in black uniforms and carrying shields advanced toward groups of suspected troublemakers against the backdrop of the Hotel des Invalides, the low-slung Foreign Ministry building and the golden statues standing sentry at the Invalides Bridge traversing the Seine River.
The attacks at the corner of Rue Saint Dominique and Rue Fabert, just a short walk from the Eiffel Tower in Paris's affluent and touristy 7th arrondissement, followed a pattern that has emerged in the last few days of marches.
While the demonstrations have been orderly and peaceful, groups of 200 to 300 youths who police say do not appear to be participating in the organized marches have appeared suddenly during concluding rallies, taunting police and creating havoc.
Police have speculated that the gangs may be from the poor suburban areas that erupted in riots last fall. In those disturbances, youths across France -- many of them immigrants or French-born children of immigrants -- burned thousands of cars and hundreds of public buildings and private businesses to protest government indifference to the joblessness and lack of social services in their communities. Little of that violence spilled over into Paris or other urban centers.
Both the suburban riots and the ongoing student demonstrations have been devastating to Chirac's government and could destroy the presidential aspirations of his party's two leading candidates -- Villepin and his rival, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy.
... Even as Ethuin, the bike rental shop owner, surveyed the damage along his block Thursday afternoon, he couldn't bring himself to criticize the young people whose demonstration brought the violence to his doorstep.
"They have no jobs," he said. "It's not their fault."
France is a nation afraid. As students and trade unionists take to the streets in defence of the past, the elites look on with a weary fatalism. What you must understand, I heard a member of Dominique de Villepins government lament the other day, is that people are fearful of everything.
I thought it strange that a minister would speak in those terms about his own country, even though the comments were not for attribution. Here was a seeming admission of the failure of political leadership alongside a transparently lame explanation for the governments retreat into protectionism. But France has been that sort of place since the voters rejection last year of the European constitutional treaty. Talk to the alumni of the nations grandes écoles and one has a sense of a collective nervous breakdown.
Divisions between insiders and outsiders are growing wider. They were visible at the extreme during last autumns violent rioting by young, jobless immigrants in the banlieus. But there are other ruptures. One lies between the postwar baby boomers who grew prosperous in security and a new generation of young people taking to the streets to demand the same protection. Another is found between those cosseted in the service of the state and those employed in businesses exposed to the harsh forces of global competition....
I sense a dawning realisation among Europes young people that they will not enjoy the assured prosperity and security of their parents. Yet, if the young are expected to eschew jobs for life, they must pay for the generous pension entitlements their parents have granted to themselves. There is something wrong with that bargain.
#1
"They have no jobs," he said. "It's not their fault."
Because unemployment means you can't be expected to refrain from violence.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/24/2006 8:45 Comments ||
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#2
As massively broken as the French system may be, it is EXACTLY what the Democrats here wish to re-create (for our own good, of course).
Behold the joys of near-universal union membership, job and trade protectionism, and a cradle-to-grave socialist welfare nanny state in which we are ALL perpetually discontented supplicants.
Behold our future.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
03/24/2006 9:16 Comments ||
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#3
They were visible at the extreme during last autumns violent rioting by young, jobless immigrants in the banlieus
I'm sorry to possibly ask a possibly obvious question, but I don't trust the way the French press portrays anything - their "spin" is far worse than ours could hope to be - so even though they say, "As students and trade unionists take to the streets , these riots seem to be organized in a manner intended to spark a bit more violence than just your average trade or student union would organize.
Are these French youths? or French "youths" realizing that they may not be able to rely upon the dole for life.
Posted by: bk ||
03/24/2006 11:32 Comments ||
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#5
Basically, the leftist demonstrators were overhelmed by the "youths" who came from the 'hoods.
Important thing is all this happened in the center of Paris, near the power's centers. According to actual witnesses, adjacent buildings of the parliament were threatened, with police having to evacuate MP's offices and secure the employees on the roof, with armed republican guards on alert ; an old lady's apartment was devasted and sprayed with tags; about 200 cars were destroyed, and firefighters were attacked on arrival.
Also, a revival of the antiwhite rampage of march 2005, with students being assaulted and racketed in mass, complete with racist assaults, and "youths" parading with banners sporting the islamic crescent.
Funny and heartwarming note : the CNT (anarchist federation) order service members had their *sses handed to them by the bad boyz from the projects, lol.
Now the leftists ask for police (which was pretty much unable to cope anyway, and under orders by Sarko to be "supple"... to disrupt the mvt/weaken his archrival Galouzeau "De Villepin"???) to protect the demonstration, you can't make this up.
This is one further symptom of the greatly advanced state of decay of the Vth... remember, anyway, this whole CPE thingie is NOT a free-market inspired measure, it is A REACTION TO THE NOVEMBER RAMADAN RIOT, passed in the law for the "equality of chances"; target population are the "youths", so they can be employed more easily, since the diagnosis of theses riots was it was all due to the "racism" of french people and their social backwardness.
So, all in all, the gvt passes a law in reaction to the "youths" riots, the left stir up the process to regain the advantage, the "shock troops" of the left demonstrate, and they got their head busted by the ones who were at th eorigin of this (and for whoses interests supposedly the leftists are in the street)... lol lol lol lol!!!
An Ottawa man was making remote controlled detonators for British terrorism suspects, one of whom discussed obtaining a radioactive bomb, a court has heard.
A police search of Momin Khawaja's Ontario home found "home-made radio transmitter and receiver boards" devices that allow bombs "to be detonated from a safe distance," Crown prosecutor David Waters alleged yesterday.
Khawaja, who is to stand trial in Canada in January on terrorism-related charges, has been described by Waters as "the Canadian end of the conspiracy" to kill British citizens. Khawaja played a "vital role" in the plot, Waters has said, but he's not among the seven men charged with terrorism in London, including one who allegedly said he was working for a top Al Qaeda member.
Potential bomb targets identified by the accused included synagogues, pubs, trains, shopping centres and Britain's high voltage electricity and high pressure gas pipeline systems, Waters said.
When Canadian police raided Khawaja's home on March 29, 2004, they also found a commercial "jamming device" which, once modified, "could be carried by the bomber," Waters said. It's used to prevent "an inadvertent activation of the bomb," he added.
Khawaja, 25, wrote several emails to one of the accused describing the progress of his detonators, Waters said. In November 2003, Khawaja explained that a signal could be sent to the receiver from up to two kilometres away, "and then we get fireworks. We pray to the most high we can do this in December," said the email read by Waters.
By then, some of the accused had bought 600 kilograms of ammonium nitrate fertilizer enough to fertilize five soccer fields and stored it at a West London depot, Waters said. Months earlier, they had used ammonium nitrate as an ingredient to make bombs at a terrorist training camp in Pakistan, the jury heard.
Police listening devices placed in two homes in southeast England later caught one of the accused, Jawad Akbar, discussing possible bomb targets, including a nightclub, Waters said.
"The biggest nightclub in central London, no one can put their hands up and say they are innocent those slags dancing around," Waters quoted Akbar as saying.
Akbar, 22, referred to non-believers as "Kufs," Waters added. "When we kill the Kuf this is because we know Allah hates the Kufs," Waters quoted Akbar as saying.
While training in Pakistan, another of the accused, Salahuddin Amin, was asked to contact a man named Abu Annis with regards to a "radio-isotope bomb," Waters said. "Amin did so via the Internet and Abu Annis said they had made contact with the Russian mafia in Belgium and from the mafia they were trying to buy this bomb," Waters told the jury.
Nothing apparently came of this attempt to buy what is commonly known as a "dirty bomb," made up of radioactive materials.
Amin later told British police he didn't think it was likely that, in his words, "you can go and pick an atomic bomb up and use it," Waters said.
SOUTH EL MONTE, Calif. - A homemade bomb was found Friday on the back seat of a car stopped for a traffic violation, authorities said. The bomb was safely defused, but several industrial businesses were evacuated and a main boulevard was closed for about four hours. Authorities did not know the size or power of the explosive device or its intended use.
The driver, whose identity was not immediately released, was arrested for investigation of being under the influence of a narcotic and could face charges of possessing an explosive device and an altered firearm, authorities said.
The driver was pulled over about 5 a.m. in a red hatchback for speeding in El Monte, a suburb about 15 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, sheriff's Sgt. Paul Patterson said. Deputies "observed a package in the rear of the vehicle with wires coming out of it," sheriff's Sgt. Don Manumaleuna said. The sheriff's arson-explosives detail was called and determined that the package was an "improvised explosive device," Manumaleuna said.
The bomb squad contacted the FBI and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Manumaleuna said.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/24/2006 14:44 ||
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#7
A homemade bomb was found Friday on the back seat of a car stopped for a traffic violation ...
was arrested for investigation of being under the influence of a narcotic ...
The driver was pulled over about 5 a.m. in a red hatchback for speeding ...
They should tack on a public stupidity charge on general principal. Makes me wonder if the guy would have called the cops if someone stole it out of his car.
Pakistan's military airdropped pamphlets this week over towns in restive tribal regions near the Afghan border urging tribesmen to shun foreign terrorists, saying they were part of a Hindu and Jewish plot.
Now that's the Pakistani military we've come to know and love.
The pamphlets were dropped over Wana, the main town in South Waziristan, and Miranshah in North Waziristan as part of a campaign to win support among tribesmen who have shown sympathy for both Taliban and remnants of al Qaeda living among them.
A Reuters reporter in Tank, a town close to the boundary with the semi-autonomous tribal agency of South Waziristan, obtained one of the pamphlets, bearing the sign-off Well Wishers, Pakistan's Armed Forces. Titled Warning, the pamphlets said the foreign militants were fighting against Pakistan in connivance with Jews and Hindus, a term that would play on traditional prejudices among the region's Muslim conservatives.
They (foreign militants) not only pose a danger to our sovereignty, but are also creating troubles for our people, read the pamphlet, which appeared in both Urdu and Pashto language versions. You should stay clear of these terrorists. Don't let them come close to your areas and houses and protect your land against them.
"They've got cooties!"
This war is against foreign terrorists and their harbourers who are fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with Jews and Hindus against the state of Pakistan, it added.
Military spokesman Major-General Shaukat Sultan said he could not confirm that pamphlets were sponsored by the military, although residents say they saw military aircraft scattering the pamphlets over their neighbourhoods. The allusion to Hindus and Jews, otherwise, appears at odds with the trend in Pakistani foreign policy.
Not if you've been paying attention. Remember, watch the hands, not the mouth.
President Pervez Musharraf has been seeking peace with India for the past two years and last year opened diplomatic channels, though not full relations, with Israel.
Remnants of al Qaeda and the Taliban -- including Arabs, Central Asians, Chechens and Afghans -- settled in Waziristan and other border areas after being ousted from Afghanistan by U.S.-led forces in late 2001. Pakistan's army has deployed in South and North Waziristan since late 2003 in an effort to root out foreign militants, but ran into fierce resistance from tribesmen who resent the army's intrusion into their lands. Up to 20 militants were killed in clashes early on Friday in the North Waziristan tribal region after a rocket attack on a military post killed one soldier and wounded two others.
Earlier this month around 200 tribesmen were killed in clashes with the army in North Waziristan after a call to arms by militant clerics.
Pakistan has captured or killed hundreds of al Qaeda members since Musharraf joined a U.S.-led war on terrorism after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is widely believed to be hiding somewhere in Pakistan along with his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/24/2006 14:27 ||
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#1
A faxed copy of a pamphlet in the local Urdu language dropped by the Pakistani military aircraft in Wana, South Waziristan, and Miranshah, in North Waziristan bordering Pakistan, is shown in Islamabad March 24, 2006. Pakistan's military airdropped pamphlets this week over towns in restive tribal regions near the Afghan border urging tribesmen to shun 'foreign terrorists', saying they were part of a Hindu and Jewish plot. the pamphlets, bearing the sign-off 'Well Wishers, Pakistan's Armed Forces'. Titled 'Warning', the pamphlets said the foreign militants were fighting against Pakistan in connivance with 'Jews and Hindus', a term that would play on traditional prejudices among the region's Muslim conservatives. 'They (foreign militants) not only pose a danger to our sovereignty, but are also creating troubles for our people,' REUTERS/Mian Khursheed
Posted by: john ||
03/24/2006 14:49 Comments ||
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#2
Well, everythings just fine then. Given the locals haven't seen a Hindu or a Jew in their life, everyone around is, well, "kosher" I guess.
No Jews here... and the dance goes on.
Maybe Perv should have added a cartoon to the leaflet.
#3
As a Jew, I feel proud to be linked with the noble Hindus. Long may our alliance prosper! I'll put my money on the Judeo-Christian-Hindu alliance vs. those Muslim-Marxist-Anarchists any day.
RAIPUR, India - Maoist rebels slit the throats of four members of an anti-Maoist group and shot dead two policemen in separate attacks in two Indian states, police said on Friday, in rising violence by the leftist radicals. In the central Chhattisgarh state, Maoists rebels attacked tribal members of the Salwa Judum (March for Peace), a government-backed anti-rebel group.
This triggered panic among the local tribal population in the area, S.K. Paswan, a senior police officer, said. The killings took place overnight in the Bastar region of the state, more than 300 km (200 miles) south of Raipur, the state capital.
Maoist rebels, who claim to fight for Indias landless labourers and poor peasants including impoverished tribes, have been striking frequently in the past year, killing government sympathisers as well as policemen. Over 50 members of Salwa Judum were killed when rebels set off a landmine under a truck in Chhattisgarh on Feb. 28.
In the neighbouring state of Orissa on Friday, dozens of Maoist rebels stormed a police station and a bank, killing two policemen after a brief firefight and kidnapping two others, as well as a revenue official. The group also broke into the local jail in R. Udayagiri town, 250 km (150 miles) south of Bhubaneswar, the state capital, and released 40 prisoners including three rebels. Police say there are more than 20,000 armed Maoists backed by hundreds of thousands of supporters, operating in 15 out of Indias 29 states. Maoist violence claimed nearly 1,000 lives last year.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/24/2006 09:13 ||
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#1
It's been a long time since the Thugee cult had a revival in India. They are past due.
A government expert's description of a terrorist camp in remote northern Pakistan had several similarities with one a Lodi man told FBI agents he attended in 2003 and 2004.
Muslim extremists operated the camp, which is hidden from plain view by mountains, Harvard scholar Hassan Abbas testified Thursday during the federal trial for Hamid Hayat, 23, and his father, Umer Hayat, 48, on terrorism-related charges.
Hamid Hayat described to agents a long bus ride, being dropped off in a field and then hiking about three miles through forested mountains to the camp. He now contends he made up the story to end agents' questioning.
Abbas, a former Pakistani police chief, testified the camp near the city of Balakot is well-known in Pakistan. While he said he has not talked to anyone who trained at the camp, he has read roughly two-dozen accounts of training by participants.
In another potential link to the younger Hayat's confession, Abbas said many recruits are attracted by the speeches and writings of Masood Azhar, leader of a banned extremist group that founded the camp in 2000 or 2001.
"They saw his speeches, read his material and met someone close to Masood Azhar," Abbas said of recruits one day after a juror dismissed from the case said she would vote to acquit the younger Hayat.
"Through that communication or conviction, they were motivated to go and join him," Abbas said.
Two hefty books found in Hayat's Lodi home were written by Azhar, and a scrapbook found there by federal agents on June 7 included newspaper stories about Azhar's group, Jaish-e-Mohammed.
Several of Abbas' answers during cross-examination backfired against defense attorney Wazhma Mojaddidi, who is representing the 23-year-old man charged with supporting terrorism and lying to the FBI about his alleged attendance at terrorist camps in Pakistan.
Where Abbas gave few details about the Balakot camp during questioning by federal prosecutor Robert Tice-Raskin, Mojaddidi pressed for more.
When the defense attorney asked if the rail-thin younger Hayat had any value to terrorist leaders, Abbas said jihadists - Muslim warriors - didn't worry about trainees' fitness.
"They're so much focused on recruiting people, anybody who has an interest, they will take him," Abbas told Mojaddidi. "Irrespective of a person's physique, they will provide the training. That's the purpose of a training camp."
Abbas also intimated there could be a job as a food preparer in such a camp. Hayat told the FBI he didn't participate in weapons training but simply washed vegetables.
"It's kind of a community they're trying to develop," Abbas said.
"They eat together, they sleep together and they move together, because they are building a community. They would be involved in all kinds of things."
Abbas also testified that contrary to efforts by Pakistan's government to eliminate terrorist training camps with the United States' assistance after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, many camps still trained Muslim extremists.
News reports of the October 2005 earthquake centered near Balakot stated many al-Qaida trainees had been killed by crumbling buildings.
Abbas spent most of the day on the witness stand, with his testimony concluding the government's case against Umer Hayat, a 48-year-old Lodi ice cream vendor and father of the co-defendant.
Paid FBI informant Naseem Khan briefly reappeared to answer more questions about his initial contacts with the FBI in Bend, Ore., in the fall of 2001, but with only Hamid Hayat's jury present.
Prosecutor Laura Ferris said the government has only one witness remaining - an expert on satellite imagery who is expected to testify Tuesday about pictures taken of a suspected terrorist camp in Pakistan.
Then, it's the defense's turn to present evidence.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/24/2006 03:18 ||
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#1
"Yaasss, I was but a humble washer of vegetables."
Islamist militants killed a Pakistani trooper and wounded two others in a rocket attack on their post in a troubled tribal region near the Afghan border on Friday, officials said.
The attack occurred early in the morning near Datta Kheil village in North Waziristan, the scene of fierce battles between security forces and militants in recent weeks.
Around 200 tribesmen were killed in clashes with the army after answering a call to arms by militant Muslim clerics following an attack on an al Qaeda camp by security forces.
Syed Zaheer-ul-Islam, the top government administrator in North Waziristan, said security forces returned fire after the rocket attack on the post but there was no word on militant casualties.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/24/2006 02:49 ||
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Pakistani forces using helicopter gunships killed around 20 pro-Taliban militants near the Afghan border after an attack on a security post left one soldier dead, an official said.
The fighting in the restive district of North Waziristan came a day after President Pervez Musharraf ordered foreign Al-Qaeda militants to quit Pakistani tribal areas bordering Afghanistan or be killed.
"Around 20 militants, including some foreigners, were killed when security forces struck their hideout with gunship helicopters and artillery after the attack on a security post, which killed one soldier and injured two others," a military official said on condition of anonymity.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/24/2006 02:48 ||
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QUETTA: A bomb blast in a PCO killed one and injured at least 13 people including two paramilitary personnel on Thursday in Kohlu. The bomb was placed inside the PCO. Kohlu District Mayor Ali Gul Mari said that it was an act of terrorism that targetted innocent people.
Ali Gul Mari was out of Kohlu for two months supporting the Mari tribesmen against security forces. He said the district government in Kohlu had started functioning and a session of the district assembly would be convened soon. Mari and Bugti tribesmen have claimed that more then 200 people have been killed ina three-month long military action, but officials could not confirm the figures. Two government officials belonging to Punjab province were shot dead and another injured a few days ago.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/24/2006 00:00 ||
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SADDAM'S ULTRA-LOYAL Fedayeen martyrs were ordered to carry out bombings and assassinations in London, Iran, and "self ruled areas" of Iraq in May 1999, according to a newly released Iraqi intelligence document. One such operation, codenamed "Tamooz Mubarak" or "Blessed July," was apparently intended to hunt down Iraqi dissidents and bomb other unspecified locations.
Although a copy of the original document was not released, an English translation was published on the Foreign Military Studies Office's Joint Reserve Intelligence Center website yesterday. The site cautions, "the US Government has made no determination regarding the authenticity of the documents, validity or factual accuracy of the information contained therein, or the quality of any translations, when available." But, the document appears to be the same as one discussed by a team of military and defense analysts in Foreign Affairs magazine earlier this month.
The Fedayeen Saddam was established in the mid-1990s and its ranks were filled with recruits fanatically loyal to Saddam and his sons. Uday, Saddam's eldest son, was the group's commander throughout much of its existence. And according to the Foreign Affairs piece, it was Uday who issued the order for the "Blessed July" operations.
The document divides the "Blessed July" operations into two "branches," bombings and assassinations, and lays out specific steps for selecting and training 50 Fedayeen martyrs for these duties. The martyrs were to be admitted to a "seminar at the Intelligence School to prepare them for the required duties." Then, "after passing the final test," the
martyrs were to be divided into three teams of ten (it is not clear what happens to the other 20). The first ten recruits "will work in the European field (London)," while the "second ten will be working in the Iranian field" and "the third ten will be working in the Self ruled area." Martyrs are even reminded to use "death capsules" if "captured at the European fields"--an apparent order to commit suicide if caught.
Posted by: Captain America ||
03/24/2006 20:30 ||
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#1
hey! no terrorism connection!!! plz we've invested to much into surrendering.
#1
Times's got a timeline problem. Public opinion has changed quite a bit since they layed out tis storyboard. Events have happened and questioning of the bias of the press has appeared in the last few days. To late for this spin.. the mood has changed.
Baghdad, 24 March (AKI) - Three hundred Palestinian families living in the al-Hurriya and al-Doura areas of Baghdad are reportedly close to fleeing their homes following escalating death threats from armed Shiite militias. According to the Iraqi information website Haqq, the latest threat arrived at dawn on Friday when a pamphlet was distributed in the zone warning "Palestinian cowards who collaborate with the Wahhabis, the Takfir (those outside Islam - often a euphemism for terrorists) and ex-Baathists loyal to Saddam, especially those living in al-Doura." "We will eliminate them all unless they leave the area within ten days. This is the last warning," the leaflet reads.
"Have a nice day"
Signed by "The Day of Judgement Brigades" the documents were distributed in the al-Doura neighbourhood which has for decades been the home of many Palestinian refugees. The ultimatum from the group, apparently linked to the most extreme Shiite militias, follows an attempt to kill five Palestinians in the area on 8 March.
The daily threats confirm the predicament of Palestinian refugees in Iraq, some of whom have been there since 1948; they face ongoing threats from Shiites but despite the deteriorating security situation are unable to flee as no other Arab country is ready to accept them. Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas has on various occasions intervened with the Iraqi president Jalal Talabani to protect the Palestinian community in the country.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/24/2006 12:36 ||
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#1
lol - perfect picture there for this story. Seems palo's are none to popular these days,lol.
#2
Article: The daily threats confirm the predicament of Palestinian refugees in Iraq, some of whom have been there since 1948; they face ongoing threats from Shiites but despite the deteriorating security situation are unable to flee as no other Arab country is ready to accept them.
Funny how leftists like to criticize the reluctance of the 160 million-strong US and Canada to accept millions of Jews during WWII, but don't seem to have any problem with the billion-strong Muslim world not wanting to take in tens of thousands of Palestinians. A little consistency would be nice.
#7
"We will eliminate them all unless they leave the area within ten days. This is the last warning," the leaflet reads." But let us know when you get there, we will send you money for suicide bombers to kill infidel's. Since you are a infidel, we will be killing two birds with one stone.
If this is'nt proof that they are pawns, I don't know what is.
#10
The Palestinians were very well pampered pawns under Saddam Hussein's rule. They paid extra low rents for their housing, and had preference for certain jobs and education. As I recall, immediately following the invasion a great many landlords evicted their Palestinian tenants in order to be able to finally get market rates for their properties. For a while there were Palestinian families living in the football stadiums because they had nowhere else to go.
And of course, they still have nowhere to go. It's not like they can go back to the PA -- most of them have never been there, and given how tight the clan structure is, likely would not be welcomed. Perhaps they can join those camped in the no-man's land between Iraq and Jordan, assuming that border remains closed. >:-(
Sgt. Amanda Pinson was killed, with a fellow soldier, by a mortar attack on March 16, 2006. An all-American girl who gave her life in defense of freedom.
#3
Whenever I read one of these stories, apart from the obvious sadness and sympathy for the families, I'm reminded that I, as an individual, am simply not worthy of such costly sacrifice. But I'm also convinced that we, as a nation, are. And I hope and pray thay we will continue to be despite the best efforts of our internal enemies.
#5
Thanks, Amanda. I hope your heaven exceeds all expectations and rewards you with the peace for which you fought. May your contibution help bring that same peace to us; those who thank you.
Iraqi security forces captured an aide to al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in a raid Thursday in eastern Iraq, a top security official said. Minister of State for National Security Abdul Karim al-Inazi identified the captive as Fares Kadhim Lafi, a Iraqi who was snared Diyala province. "He carried out 27 operations including an attack on a minibus that left nine civilians dead," al-Inazi told The Associated Press. He said security forces had received a tip on Lafi's whereabouts. It is not uncommon for Iraqi authorities and US military to say they have captured aides to al-Zarqawi without giving further information.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/24/2006 03:25 ||
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#4
As frustrating as I get about not nailing Zark, when we nail the key staff guys of his we disrupt his operations, delay his ability to act, and cause him to replace a trusted staff guy with someone new that is not trusted. All this reduces his ability to be effective, and destroys his credibility in AQ. Good job on a good hit.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
03/24/2006 10:34 Comments ||
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#5
Another "Top Lt." - rolls eyes
Posted by: Yosemite Sam ||
03/24/2006 10:59 Comments ||
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#7
Zarqawi may actually be responsible for fewer deaths this month than tater.
However, probably at least half of the people being killed by tater's tots are ex-baathists who either have blood on their hand or worked as Saddam's agents.
Iraq has determined that the Al Qaida presence has decreased.
Officials said Iraqi intelligence has assessed that the number of Al Qaida operatives in the country decreased significantly over the last year. They said many of the operatives were either killed, captured or returned to their native countries.
"We have information that many members of Al Qaida have returned to their countries," Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said.
Officials said no more than several hundred Al Qaida operatives were believed to be in Iraq. They said more than 2,000 Al Qaida fighters had been operating in the country until 2005.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/24/2006 03:17 ||
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#1
Terrorism tourists? Let them carry home the message that Allah doesn't support them in this effort.
"U.S. War Plan Leaked to Iraqis by Russian Ambassador"
Documents dated March 5-8, 2003
Two Iraqi documents dated in March 2003 on the eve of the U.S.-led invasion and addressed to the secretary of Saddam Hussein, describe details of a U.S. plan for war. According to the documents, the plan was disclosed to the Iraqis by the Russian ambassador.
The first document (CMPC-2003-001950) is a handwritten account of a meeting with the Russian ambassador that details his description of the composition, size, location and type of U.S. military forces arrayed in the Gulf and Jordan. The document includes the exact numbers of tanks, armored vehicles, different types of aircraft, missiles, helicopters, aircraft carriers, and other forces, and also includes their exact locations. The ambassador also described the positions of two Special Forces units.
The second document (CMPC-2004-001117) is a typed account, signed by Deputy Foreign Minister Hammam Abdel Khaleq, that states that the Russian ambassador has told the Iraqis that the United States was planning to deploy its force into Iraq from Basra in the South and up the Euphrates, and would avoid entering major cities on the way to Baghdad, which is, in fact what happened. The documents also state "Americans are also planning on taking control of the oil fields in Kirkuk." The information was obtained by the Russians from "sources at U.S. Central Command in Doha, Qatar," according to the document.
This document also includes an account of an amusing incident in which several Iraqi Army officers (presumably seeking further elaboration of the U.S. war plans) contacted the Russian Embassy in Baghdad and stated that the ambassador was their source. Needless to say, this caused great embarrassment to the ambassador, and the officers were instructed "not to mention the ambassador again in that context."
(Editor's Note: The Russian ambassador in March 2003 was Vladimir Teterenko. Teterenko appears in documents released by the Volker Commission, which investigated the Oil for Food scandal, as receiving allocations of 3 million barrels of oil worth roughly $1.5 million. )
"Osama bin Laden Contact With Iraq"
A newly released prewar Iraqi document indicates that an official representative of Saddam Hussein's government met with Osama bin Laden in Sudan on February 19, 1995, after receiving approval from Saddam Hussein. Bin Laden asked that Iraq broadcast the lectures of Suleiman al Ouda, a radical Saudi preacher, and suggested "carrying out joint operations against foreign forces" in Saudi Arabia. According to the document, Saddam's presidency was informed of the details of the meeting on March 4, 1995, and Saddam agreed to dedicate a program for them on the radio. The document states that further "development of the relationship and cooperation between the two parties to be left according to what's open [in the future] based on dialogue and agreement on other ways of cooperation." The Sudanese were informed about the agreement to dedicate the program on the radio.
The report then states that "Saudi opposition figure" bin Laden had to leave Sudan in July 1996 after it was accused of harboring terrorists. It says information indicated he was in Afghanistan. "The relationship with him is still through the Sudanese. We're currently working on activating this relationship through a new channel in light of his current location," it states.
(Editor's Note: This document is handwritten and has no official seal. Although contacts between bin Laden and the Iraqis have been reported in the 9/11 Commission report and elsewhere (e.g., the 9/11 report states "Bin Ladn himself met with a senior Iraqi intelligence officer in Khartoum in late 1994 or early 1995) this document indicates the contacts were approved personally by Saddam Hussein.
It also indicates the discussions were substantive, in particular that bin Laden was proposing an operational relationship, and that the Iraqis were, at a minimum, interested in exploring a potential relationship and prepared to show good faith by broadcasting the speeches of al Ouda, the radical cleric who was also a bin Laden mentor.
The document does not establish that the two parties did in fact enter into an operational relationship. Given that the document claims bin Laden was proposing to the Iraqis that they conduct "joint operations against foreign forces" in Saudi Arabia, it is worth noting that eight months after the meeting on November 13, 1995 terrorists attacked Saudi National Guard Headquarters in Riyadh, killing 5 U.S. military advisers. The militants later confessed on Saudi TV to having been trained by Osama bin Laden.)
"Osama bin Laden and the Taliban"
Document dated Sept. 15, 2001
An Iraqi intelligence service document saying that their Afghan informant, who's only identified by a number, told them that the Afghan consul Ahmed Dahastani claimed the following in front of him:
That OBL and the Taliban are in contact with Iraq and that a group of Taliban and bin Laden group members visited Iraq
That the U.S. has proof the Iraqi government and "bin Laden's group" agreed to cooperate to attack targets inside America.
That in case the Taliban and bin Laden's group turn out to be involved in "these destructive operations," the U.S. may strike Iraq and Afghanistan.
That the Afghan consul heard about the issue of Iraq's relationship with "bin Laden's group" while he was in Iran.
At the end, the writer recommends informing "the committee of intentions" about the above-mentioned items. The signature on the document is unclear.
(ABC News bullshit Editor's Note: The controversial claim that Osama bin Laden was cooperating with Saddam Hussein is an ongoing matter of intense debate. While the assertions contained in this document clearly support the claim, the sourcing is questionable i.e., an unnamed Afghan "informant" reporting on a conversation with another Afghan "consul." The date of the document four days after 9/11 is worth noting but without further corroboration, this document is of limited evidentiary value.)
More
Posted by: Captain America ||
03/24/2006 00:06 ||
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#1
BUGS BUNNY > "Of course you know this means war", i.e. no glazed Chicken or Christina videos, etc. for our always loyal friend for democracy the Russian Ambassador.
#3
How good of a pre-brief did the Ruskis get? Did he just give them the Official Ruski brief? Did he make 1.5 million off of Putin's brief? He may not be worried about Western opinion at this point.
Also, I would be very interested in his positioning information. Depending on how he presented it, it will help find the source.
And doesn't this make Saddam out to be one fucking horrendous general? But just like getting the test answers before the midterm, if the topic is way above your head, it really doesn't matter, your still going to fail miserably.
Maybe he got the plan of the 4th ID coming out of Turkey and he couldn't adjust.
At this point in the game, even if you had pictures of Osama doing a Monica Lewinsky on Saddam it wouldn't change anyone's opinion on Al Qaeda and Saddam. It's a waste of time to even try.
Now there's some absolutely undeniable treason to snoop out. Our Mystery Guest and Rocky and Pinky and the Gang can all share a cell block. I'd love to see the Tsar's face about now. I guess this means the Russkies can expect to be left sniffing fumes on Iran and everything thing else we ever do again until Hell Freezes Solid. Good. Always hated those bastards.
"Smoking Guns! Get yer Smoking Guns here!"
Tune in tomorrow for the next episode of As The Worm Turns...
Posted by: Jans Snomble4884 ||
03/24/2006 1:43 Comments ||
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#5
Given that the document claims bin Laden was proposing to the Iraqis that they conduct "joint operations against foreign forces" in Saudi Arabia, it is worth noting that eight months after the meeting on November 13, 1995 terrorists attacked Saudi National Guard Headquarters in Riyadh
And one month after that meeting was the Oklahoma City Bombing.
#6
So, some major spies were reporting from CentCom.
UK, US, combo or what?
Press?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/24/2006 7:39 Comments ||
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#7
I suspect that the longer our Iran "diplomacy" at the U.N. drags on, the more juicy tidbits about the Russian's role in Iraq will be released. Think of it as an incentive plan.
#10
I wouldn't guess espionage. CENTCOM probably officially gave this info to the Russians for several reasons, under the heading of "confidence building", to avoid any misunderstandings; knowing full well that their own satellites would confirm most of it.
They also carefully calculated out that any information provided isn't "operational that cannot be obtained through other means". This means we *assume* that the Russians, and the Chinese, and the French, et al, are ALL going to sell us out.
By giving this information to the villains, with slight differences in content depending on the receipient, we can also determine *who* is selling us out. And it is always better to know for sure that someone is selling you out, rather than to just assume they will sell you out.
This is because that if you *know* somebody is selling you out, at a critical moment you can give them majorly wrong information and know that your enemy will get it, and probably trust it.
This not only can cost your enemy dearly, but might even ruin their relationship with the fink country.
The chess-like complexity of treachery is truly a wonder to behold.
#11
If you read up on Operation Mincemeat ("The Man Who Never Was") and similar classic feats of operational deception, one of the things that strikes you is how much true information has to be mixed in with the deception in order to make the whole thing credible. Without access to CENTCOM's official documents, it might be hard for us amatuers to tell if this was a real leak, or a deception with elements of truth mixed in for verisimilitude.
Posted by: Mike ||
03/24/2006 10:51 Comments ||
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#12
Keep in mind, folks, the Russians did us the favor of selling the Iraqis those targeting beacons GPS jammers.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/24/2006 10:57 Comments ||
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#13
Do the Ruskies have Satellites? Do the Rusikes have COMINT? It doesn't have to be a spy or a leak. Maybe they got a galley draft of Newsweek.
#14
I'll go with the others here who are citing this release as just another button on the coat we are fitting Russia for in advance of pull-starting the Iranian turbans.
#16
I'm pretty sure we suspected the Ruskies would inform the Iraqis of the 'plan.' I recall that, in his book, Gen Franks said he had reason to believe the 4th ID through Turkey bluff was working. Perhaps this is part of why.
#20
JAB, et al--Do you have a source for this 4ID-through-Turkey bluff claim?
Posted by: Dar ||
03/24/2006 17:40 Comments ||
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#21
Uh, no, that cannot be accurately stated.
We shipped and off-loaded several large cargo carriers full of 4th ID gear onto Turkish docks - effectively taking it out of the fight for 4+ months for a bluff?
We were offering BILLIONS in aid pkgs to Turkey for a bluff?
US-Turkish relations hit the basement floor with a thud for a bluff?
The vote was a mere handful short of approving (less than 10 - out of about 400 - can't remember exact numbers) and it was a bluff?
No, this isn't correct. I saw 50+ articles on the negotiations with Turkey - and it was clearly expected to happen at the beginning and everything deteriorated dramatically toward the end when they voted against allowing passage rights. Even if we knew it would fail before it actually did - the news stories were incessant and virtually all were pestimistic.
No, it simply does not fit with the facts.
Posted by: Jans Snomble4884 ||
03/24/2006 18:14 Comments ||
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#22
I am always impressed by the quality of an organization that can go after Lt. George Bush with blatant forgeries but immediately introduce weasel words when faced with real Iraqi documents. Fake but accurate immediately becomes accurate but fake.
Posted by: john ||
03/24/2006 20:46 Comments ||
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#23
Sorry. I used a poor word. Early on it was our intention to move through Turkey. But, it became clear that Turkey would not play ball. From that point forward, it was a diversion. Certainly this was true in Mar-03. Franks stated in his book that the Iraqis believed it until very late in the war.
Iraqi interior ministry announced on Thursday the killing of eight insurgents and the arrest of ten others in an operations carried out by Iraqi security forces. A statement by the ministry said seven of these men were arrested and seven others were arrested when its forces stormed their hideout in the city of Samarra. The statement said three other insurgents were arrested in Baghdad. TNT explosives were find in their car, it added. "Security forces were able to kill eight terrorists who opened fire at their checkpoint in the Al-Latifiyah." The statement said.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/24/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
(sarcasm)Another misquote in the conservatively biased MSM: It was actually a family of men on their way to a wedding banquet and their car backfired. The TNT was actually firecrackers to celebrate.(/sarcasm off)
#5
But, my scorecards are such a mess. I was once prized for orderly score keeping. Now, I barely recognize my own work. This thing about no uniforms is the real problem. I knew no good would come from it.
That is not my headline. If you survive assassination you haven't been assassinated.
Iraq's Army second brigade Major Anwar Hama Ameen survived Thursday a bomb blast in southern Kirkuk, said a security source The source told KUNA that a bomb exploded while the Major's military convoy was passing by the Al-Riyadh-Al- Huwajah road adding that one of the cars in the convoy was damaged due to the blast. Meanwhile, another blast damaged cars on the road between Kirkuk- Al-Huwajah resulting in the injury of two citizens.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/24/2006 00:00 ||
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How do we know it wasn't Bush or Cheney who put that IED there ?
Posted by: Charlie Sheeen ||
03/24/2006 10:25 Comments ||
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#2
sheer Genius
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/24/2006 18:40 Comments ||
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At least 56 Iraqis died in violence on Thursday, including a car bombing that killed 25 people in the third major attack on a police lockup in three days. A suicide car bomber detonated his explosives at the entrance to the Interior Ministry Major Crimes unit in Baghdads central Karradah district, killing 10 civilians and 15 policemen employed there, authorities said.
Guess that gave them a major crime to investigate...
A second car bomb hit a market area outside a Shia Muslim mosque in the mostly mixed Shia-Sunni neighbourhood of Shurta in southwest Baghdad. At least six people were killed and more than 20 wounded, many of them children, police said. Roadside bombs targeting police patrols killed four others two policemen and two bystanders in Baghdad and at least one policeman in Iskandariyah. Police said dozens were wounded. Another two policemen were killed and two were wounded when gunmen ambushed their convoy in north Baghdad, an attack that police said was an aborted attempt to free detainees who were being transferred to the northern city of Mosul.
Elsewhere throughout the capital, two police were killed in gun battles with insurgents and two civilians a private contractor and power plant employee were gunned down in drive-by shootings. Fourteen more bodies were found in the continuing string of shadowy sectarian killings: six in the capital and eight brought in by US forces to a hospital in Fallujah, 65 kilometres west of Baghdad, police said. Back in the capital, a mortar round fell on a house wounding three civilians, police Lt Ziad Hassan said. Another civilian was seriously wounded by an Iraqi army patrol that was shooting in the air to clear traffic in the western neighbourhood of Yarmouk, police said.
In a lightning operation, US and British forces on Thursday rescued three Western hostages held captive in Iraq for almost four months. The three aid workers from the Christian Peacemaker Teams Canadians Harmeet Sooden, 32, and Jim Loney, 41, and Briton Norman Kember, 74 were found together in a house in western Baghdad. They were bound, but the house was otherwise empty and not a shot was fired. The raid was put together in just three hours after US forces obtained information from a detainee about the location of the hostages, US-led coalition spokesman Major General Rick Lynch told reporters. Their US colleague Tom Fox, seized with them in Baghdad on November 26, was slain two weeks ago and his body found dumped in the city.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/24/2006 00:00 ||
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The raid was put together in just three hours after US forces obtained information from a detainee about the location of the hostages
I know they do a lot of raids these days, but that seems impressive to me, nonetheless.
A deal had been struck with a man detained the previous night who was one of the leaders of the kidnappers. He was allowed a telephone call to warn his henchmen to leave the kidnap house. When the troops moved in and found the prisoners alive, they also let him go as promised.
UN agency concerned over threats against Palestinians in Iraq
By The Associated Press [hat tip haaretz]
The United Nations refugee agency said Friday it was concerned about deteriorating conditions for Palestinians in Iraq, citing death threats against Palestinian families in one Baghdad neighborhood.
is this a micro violin or a nano violin song
The UN's High Commissioner for Refugees said it did not know who was behind the threats, but in the sectarian strife that has roiled Iraq, many Shiites and Kurds have come to view the Palestinians living in Iraq as sympathetic to the Sunni-dominated insurgency. There is also resentment over privileges they received under Saddam Hussein's rule.
#1
My new ACME Wide-Range Digital Sympathy Meter is registering about 3.42117 yoctogiveashits (that's 3.4 x 10-24 giveashits (divide by 7 to convert to giveafucks).
Posted by: Dave D. ||
03/24/2006 13:16 Comments ||
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#2
dang...that's even reading lower than my ACME Wide-Range Digital Sympathy Meter. You must have paid extra to get that sort of hypersensitivity near abosolute zero.
#3
This would carry a bit more wait if these arschlochs ever evinced the slightest concern for the Israeli families under constant attack by Palestinians.
#6
This just in: 10,000 crazy Paleos in Iraq decide to convert to Christianity and move to Afghanistan. Stating that Allah had instructed them to walk the fine line between notoriety and pointless foolishness, which would result in their being elected to various positions in the EU.
#7
Dave D---your meter must be cooled in liquid helium to get those kind of sensitivities! Mine only goes down to 10 to the minus 6 GAS'es. And it's digital. Fred's analog unit only goes down to milliGAS.
Getting back to the Paleos, they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. They also have a knack for picking losers to latch onto. They sh*t into their messkits---again---now they have to live with the consequences.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/24/2006 19:44 Comments ||
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The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the military wing of the Fatah Movement, claimed responsibility on Thursday for a four-missile attack on the southern Israeli town of Majdal. The group said in statement the four locally-made missiles Shehab 3 were fired late last night.
Earlier, the Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement claimed responsibility for killing an Israeli solider in southern Gaza. Earlier this morning, Palestinians fired a mortar shell on an Israeli military patrol's car in southern Gaza. An Israeli military spokesman said no casulaties were reported. On another front, Palestinian sources said an Israeli military tank fired several shots on Palestinian areas in central Gaza. The Israeli operation followed the killing of two members of the Islamic Jihad Movement in an Israeli air raid .
Posted by: Fred ||
03/24/2006 00:00 ||
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Have the Islamists ever inflated inflicted Israeli injuries and deaths before? IIRC, they did not.
The State Security Court president has given Jordanian fugitive Abu Mussab Zarqawi 10 days to surrender and face trial in connection with hotel bombings late last year. "I give you 10 days from the date of publication of this notice to surrender to the judicial authorities to face trial," said a statement published in the press on Wednesday and signed by the head of the tribunal. "If you do not surrender during that time you will be considered fugitive," it said.
Yep. That oughta do it.
The surrender notice was also addressed to five Iraqis and a Jordanian indicted along with Zarqawi last week for the Nov. 9 triple hotel bombings in Amman that killed 60 people. But according to court papers obtained by AFP, Iraqi woman would-be suicide bomber Sajida Rishawi will be the only suspect to stand trial for the hotel bombings, which were claimed by Zarqawi's Al Qaeda group in Iraq. Rishawi was arrested four days after the bombings and later shown confessing on state television how she tried but failed to activate an explosives belt at the Radisson SAS Hotel where a wedding party was in full swing.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/24/2006 00:00 ||
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Would this be one of those RFSP moments?
Posted by: Jans Snomble4884 ||
03/24/2006 1:50 Comments ||
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Tehran, Iran, Mar. 24 Islamist militiamen affiliated to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps have launched military exercises near the Iraqi border to deal with possible unrest, Irans official news agency IRNA reported. Members of the paramilitary Bassij force staged military exercises in the western town of Dehloran. The paramilitary forces attacked dummy enemy sites during the operation.
The objective of the military exercises here is to raise the level of readiness of the Bassij forces, said Alireza Bazdar, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in Dehloran. Our forces were able to capture the positions taken by the enemy and destroy the enemy forces. This will help us prepare ourselves to deal with possible outbreaks of unrest with force and determination, Bazdar said.
The Revolutionary Guards and the Bassij have been staging a series of military and security exercises in Tehran and its suburbs since February.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/24/2006 12:45 ||
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This photo is too amusing. Guys in turbans *and* shades.
Impressive exercise, they conquered the unrestful dummies.
Posted by: Captain America ||
03/24/2006 14:01 Comments ||
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Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps - White turbans make for good targets. Hey maybe they have a secret formula to make cloth as strong as kevlar. I hope they get an opportunity to test it against a 5.56mm round.
#5
They "goosestep", just like their facist heroes of the past did. Saw one of their 'parades' on video once (looked like a very poor variation of one of the old Nazi or Soviet era 'celebrations').
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
03/24/2006 14:41 Comments ||
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Ya gotta admit, the Germans made it look cool. Everyone else makes it just look sad...
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice issued a veiled warning Thursday to holdouts in a diplomatic impasse at the United Nations over Iran's disputed nuclear program.
"There can't be any stalling," Rice said in response to a question about U.S. efforts to get Russia and China to sign on to a strongly worded rebuke to Tehran.
Russia and China have refused to back a U.N. Security Council statement proposed by Britain, France and the United States demanding Iran suspend uranium enrichment.
Talks among the permanent members of the Security Council have bogged down over the statement, which traditional Iranian allies or trade partners see as a prelude to sanctions they do not support.
Rice planned to call her Russian counterpart Friday to try to break the deadlock.
The Security Council statement was intended to be an opening move in what could be lengthy talks at the powerful U.N. body over how to stop Iran from building a nuclear bomb.
The statement was also meant to be an easier pill to swallow for Russia and China than would another option: A tough Security Council resolution.
A presidential statement requires consensus from the body's 15 members. A resolution would be put to an up-or-down vote, meaning Russia and China would have to approve, abstain or veto action against Iran.
Rice indicated that the United States will not wait long before taking another tack.
Posted by: Captain America ||
03/24/2006 00:00 ||
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The bell of the future resurgent NUCLEARIZED Persian/Ottoman Empire(s) tolls for thee, Russia-China, not just the USA-West.
#5
This is fun to watch! I've hedged bets around the table, that Israel won't wait, as her 'neck hairs' stand to attention! No sweat on waiting for Iran to build the bomb, terrified however of the knowledge to do so!
#6
... People. Think about it.
1. It is absoluteny not sure, that Iran want to build A-Bomb. There were Comisars for x years and found nothing. Also Baradei told to press that it can be misused but there is no evidence till yet. There are nuclear plants in Mid Europe, IndonesiaAfrica and nobody cares... Why Iran and why now?
2. Do you realy want a WAR! Probably you know war just from games and CNN report videos. But war is something commpletely different. Remember Katrina? War is 10000 time worser...
Please think before you pull the trigger. You are not only one who owe weapon.
#7
Bordza, please. Many RB'ers are veterans of our armed services who have seen combat. I've never met any combat vets who relished actual fighting.
As for that "Iran doesn't want an A-Bomb" statement....then explain why Ahmadinejad practically has wet dreams over the thought of wiping Israel off the map with nukes, or likes to threaten that Iranian missiles could reach Europe.
Have you been listening to what he says at all? Apparently not.
#10
Brodza,
As a veteran, I do not relish war, but do realize it is usually the best and cleanest means to handle terrorists and fascist scum like the leaders of Iran. Better billions spent and thousands dead rather than the other way around.
The problem with your moronic point about nuke plants is the fact that the countries that have them have never wanted a nuclear weapon and don't daily spew forth that they want Israel and the west buried in a sea of fire. Here is a free hint from the last 100 years of history. When a leader publicly states they want to kill you, they mean it. Iran has stated publicly, over and over, that nuclear weapons are their aim and they want to use them.
I tend to take them on their word.
#11
"So who wants diplomacy to succeed here? I sure don't."
It depends on what "succeed" means. If it just kicks the can down the road a few months, than no i dont want it to succeed. If it actually results in Iran, out of fear of sanctions, giving up on enrichment and their entire nuclear weapons program then I do want it to succeed. Much as I have many other problems with the islamofascists in Teheran, from their internal suppression of dissent, to their support of Hezbollah in Lebanon and of Hamas and IJ against Israel - this is NOT the optimal time for a war against Iran, in terms of US force availability, the US diplomatic position worldwide, or the US position in the Islamic world. War MAY be necessary to stop Iranian nukes, but if there is another way, I want to pursue it.
Then there is yet another definition of diplomacy "succeeding" Our diplomacy with Russia and China could succeed in getting sanctions, and yet the islamofascists could refuse to give in, and the sanctions could lead to the downfall of their regime. That would be a very desirable outcome, IMHO.
#12
Since Imadinnerjacket has become president of Iran, let's review what has happened in his part of the world. Israel pulled out of Gaza. Iraq has had elections. Hamas has been offered control of the Paleos. Iranian influence in Iraq has contributed to civil unrest and delayed the formation of effective government there. Rumors about interrupting the flow of oil from the gulf.
Good things from our side matched by terrorism and disorder from the other side. And from Iran, border fights, crackdowns, threats against Israel, rumors about AQ in Iran, and blatant refusal to include the atomic watchdogs in their nuke development.
Iran is the source of so much trouble, both at home and in other sensitive areas, that something has to be done with them. Add to that the possibility of them developing nuclear weapons, and clearly, immediate action is required.
The only option about it is, do it now there or do it later here.
#13
I recall a tounge-in-cheek analysis done for attacking Iran in 1979 by a few guys from Brunswick.
It went something like this:
H-Bombs over large areas of the desert
followed by C-5As spraying hydrofloric acid to dope the amorphous new desert glass
followed by C-5As spraying aluminum conductors
Resulting in the worlds largests solarcells.
Diplomatic cover was let the USSR have the power in return for looking the other way.
#14
The big picture is that Iran is inherently a threat.
First of all, the development of nuclear weapons has become a national prerogative--publicly popular--a dangerous symbol of pride and virility that is felt will give them all that they desire.
Second, the Persians, like the Japanese prior to World War II, crave their "place in the sun" as a world economic, military and religious power. They think posession of nuclear weapons will give them all of this, which they have been unfairly denied by external forces.
Third, I do mean the "Persians", as in their heterogeneous society, Persians are everything and the minority Kurds, Arabs, Baluchs, and Tajiks are nothing, except hated peoples, some in resource-rich lands. And yet the Persians by dint of these lands are far more powerful then they would be otherwise.
So, all of this being said, Iran must be partitioned. If Iran's nuclear capability is destroyed, it just delays the inevitable; but if they are deprived of the means to pay for rebuilding, Persia will be denied for several generations at least.
Not only will Iran, or Persia, cease to be a threat, but a greater balance will be achieved with Kurdistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Iraq, the most likely beneficiaries of what had been Iranian territories.
For its part, Persia will not suffer overmuch, as it still has its people and its own resources. It will have the possibility to be a prosperous and successful nation, yet will no longer threaten the region, spread terrorism, or abuse those who are not Persian.
#15
Iran does not need to be partitioned, necessarily. But it does need to be Shermanized. Just like Japan. This means the people must suffer sufficiently that they no longer wish to be a threat. Jusat like the Japanese.
Rice indicated that the United States will not wait long before taking another tack.
A little more like it. It's time to fight or f&ck fish or cut bait.
followed by C-5As spraying hydrofloric acid to dope the amorphous new desert glass
While certainly entertaining in principle, hydrofluoric acid is used as an etchant for silicon dioxide and polysilicon layers. Dopants, which affect conductivity of otherwise insulating materials, must be diffused into the bulk carrier via ion implantation or thermal diffusion. Mebbe a germanium device shroud could provide the doping as there would certainly be a sufficient thermal quotient (so to speak) to mobilize the dopant's diffusion.
#17
I would like to see a GPS coordinates sending device embedded on each of the Moolahs's heads and their goofy president's. Talk about pinhead, pin point bombing.
Seems like prez goofy gives numerous speeches. Timing?
Posted by: Captain America ||
03/24/2006 11:50 Comments ||
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#18
Poor Bordza , get educated , or you will always sound like a fool.
#19
What's sadder - that people think a "strongly worded letter" or "sanctions with more holes than a colander" actually mean something -- or that we waste time on the UN to have these pointless exercises?
Posted by: Jans Snomble4884 ||
03/24/2006 18:19 Comments ||
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The US treasury has frozen the assets of the Lebanese satellite channel al-Manar. The treasury also blocked any US assets of al-Nour Radio and Lebanese Media Group, which it said was the parent company of al-Manar and al-Nour. It said both media outlets had facilitated the activities of Hizbollah, the Lebanese resistance group which the US brands a terrorist organisation, including giving support by fundraising and recruitment.
The treasury's action prohibits transactions between Americans and the companies in addition to freezing any assets they may have under US jurisdiction. Stuart Levey, under-secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence at the treasury, said: "Any entity maintained by a terrorist group - whether masquerading as a charity, a business, or a media outlet - is as culpable as the terrorist group itself." A treasury statement said al-Manar had also provided support to Palestinian groups defined as terrorist by the US government, including by transfer of tens of millions of dollars to a charity linked to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad resistance movement.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/24/2006 00:00 ||
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DAMASCUS - Syrian security forces on Thursday arrested dissident writer Ali Abdullah after at least four other people including his son were detained for speaking out against the regime, rights activists said. Both the Syrian Human Rights Organization and prominent human rights lawyer Anwar Bunni said Abdullah, who spent five months behind bars last year had been arrested at his home for unknown reasons.
The pursuit of this campaign of political arrests will cause more suffering, the group said, calling on the government to free all political detainees.
Abdullah was last arrested in May 2005 for reading a message by a Muslim Brotherhood leader during a political discussion at the Atassi salon, a venue devoted to reform in Syria. He was released in November along with 190 political prisoners as part of overall reforms in Syria, official media reported at the time.
Abdullahs son, Omar, was arrested at the weekend along with a second student, Diab Seerieh, for wanting to form a democratic gathering of youths to discuss young peoples problems, Bunni said.
The rights group also said that Mohammed Najati Tayyara, vice president of the Human Rights Association in Syria (HRAS), was arrested Wednesday for unknown reasons. Bunni added that Tayyara had attended last month a meeting of Syrian opposition members held in the United States.
HRAS said Mohammed Walid al-Kabir al-Hosni, a 65-year-old father of four, had also been arrested Tuesday after he had been sought by security forces for several months. He was arrested probably for having spoken his political opinions in public places, the group said.
Bunni also called on authorities to end this campaign aiming to terrorize activists because it only increases the list of human rights violations.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/24/2006 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A district police chief was killed by his own bodyguard in Afghanistan's troubled southern parts on Thursday. Other bodyguards of the slain instantly opened fire at their colleague killing him on the spot. Chief of the Moosa Qala district of Afghanistan's southern 
Meanwhile, coalition forces claimed killing six Taliban during a joint operation with Afghan soldiers in the neighbouring Uruzgan province. A statement released here on Thursday said the operation was carried out on Tuesday in the area believed to be a hideout of the insurgents from where they manage to attack the Afghan and coalition forces. A day earlier, Afghan forces claimed they had killed 15 Taliban in an overnight clash in the border areas of the Kandahar province. However, locals later revealed the slain were ordinary citizens and not Taliban. On the other hand, the incident further intensified the tension between Pakistan and Afghanistan as the former said the people killed by Afghan forces were citizens of Pakistan. Tribes living along the rugged border between the two countries claim citizenship of both the countries and they frequently cross the border to meet their relatives and friends living on the other side, or look after their businesses.
Hundreds of people have been fleeing the northern suburbs of Mogadishu after two days of heavy fighting in the Somali capital. 
THE Foreign and Commonwealth Office has been forced into an embarrassing change of heart over its refusal to press for the release of a British resident held at Guantanamo Bay after the High Court was told yesterday that he had links to MI5.
A British terrorist cell with alleged links to Al-Qaeda discussed bombing revellers at a large central London nightclub as well as targeting several synagogues in London and one in Manchester, a prosecutor said Wednesday. One of the defendants, 
Italy is on a state of high alert for possible terrorist attacks during the final phase of the elections campaign. Voting is scheduled to take place on April 9 and 10, and it is feared that Islamic militants may strike immediately before voting to maximize its political impact. To compound the sense of anxiety, the Bush administration has just warned that Italy should expect terrorist attacks (similar to the ones that devastated Madrid two years ago) near the elections.
Germany's intelligence chief said on Thursday that the success of Germany and other countries in hunting down terrorists has done little to reduce the threat "Islamic terrorism" poses to Europe and Israel. 
Gang Rampage Mars Rally Against Job Law; Pressure Builds on Chirac
An Ottawa man was making remote controlled detonators for British terrorism suspects, one of whom discussed obtaining a radioactive bomb, a court has heard.
QUETTA: A bomb blast in a PCO killed one and injured at least 13 people including two paramilitary personnel on Thursday in Kohlu. The bomb was placed inside the PCO. Kohlu District Mayor Ali Gul Mari said that it was an act of terrorism that targetted innocent people.
Baghdad, 24 March (AKI) - Three hundred Palestinian families living in the al-Hurriya and al-Doura areas of Baghdad are reportedly close to fleeing their homes following escalating death threats from armed Shiite militias. According to the Iraqi information website Haqq, the latest threat arrived at dawn on Friday when a pamphlet was distributed in the zone warning "Palestinian cowards who collaborate with the Wahhabis, the Takfir (those outside Islam - often a euphemism for terrorists) and ex-Baathists loyal to Saddam, especially those living in al-Doura." "We will eliminate them all unless they leave the area within ten days. This is the last warning," the leaflet reads. 
Iraqi security forces captured an aide to al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in a raid Thursday in eastern Iraq, a top security official said. Minister of State for National Security Abdul Karim al-Inazi identified the captive as Fares Kadhim Lafi, a Iraqi who was snared Diyala province. "He carried out 27 operations including an attack on a minibus that left nine civilians dead," al-Inazi told The Associated Press. He said security forces had received a tip on Lafi's whereabouts. It is not uncommon for Iraqi authorities and US military to say they have captured aides to al-Zarqawi without giving further information.
A second car bomb hit a market area outside a Shia Muslim mosque in the mostly mixed Shia-Sunni neighbourhood of Shurta in southwest Baghdad. At least six people were killed and more than 20 wounded, many of them children, police said. Roadside bombs targeting police patrols killed four others two policemen and two bystanders in Baghdad and at least one policeman in Iskandariyah. Police said dozens were wounded. Another two policemen were killed and two were wounded when gunmen ambushed their convoy in north Baghdad, an attack that police said was an aborted attempt to free detainees who were being transferred to the northern city of Mosul.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the military wing of the Fatah Movement, claimed responsibility on Thursday for a four-missile attack on the southern Israeli town of Majdal. The group said in statement the four locally-made missiles Shehab 3 were fired late last night. 
The State Security Court president has given Jordanian fugitive Abu Mussab Zarqawi 10 days to surrender and face trial in connection with hotel bombings late last year. "I give you 10 days from the date of publication of this notice to surrender to the judicial authorities to face trial," said a statement published in the press on Wednesday and signed by the head of the tribunal. "If you do not surrender during that time you will be considered fugitive," it said. 
Tehran, Iran, Mar. 24 Islamist militiamen affiliated to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps have launched military exercises near the Iraqi border to deal with possible unrest, Irans official news agency IRNA reported. Members of the paramilitary Bassij force staged military exercises in the western town of Dehloran. The paramilitary forces attacked dummy enemy sites during the operation.
The US treasury has frozen the assets of the Lebanese satellite channel al-Manar. The treasury also blocked any US assets of al-Nour Radio and Lebanese Media Group, which it said was the parent company of al-Manar and al-Nour. It said both media outlets had facilitated the activities of Hizbollah, the Lebanese resistance group which the US brands a terrorist organisation, including giving support by fundraising and recruitment.
DAMASCUS - Syrian security forces on Thursday arrested dissident writer 
